Does it seem as though the art of language is declining. I’m all for gadgets and stuff, but oh how much fun it seemed language was once long ago. Especially the Elizabethan Times where everything appears to have been more colourful. Not only in costume but their very descriptive language. A sign of our times, will we eventually speak like we txt and speak shorthand language. Is this the generation where we become so boring with limited words for expressing ourselves.
A few such words come to mind. I’m sure you know what they are.
So often used in movies – radio – conversation. I know I’m bored hearing them over and over. Aren’t you?
To swear or not to swear now that is the question?
Why not for a bit of a lark and try this out.
Enjoy.The Elizabeth InsultRomeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow
That tips with silver all these fruit tree tops

Juliet: Oh, swear not by the moon, th´inconstant moon. That monthly changes in her circled orb Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Romeo: What shall I swear by?

Juliet: Do not swear at all. Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self. Which is the god of my idolatry. An I´ll believe thee.

Romeo: If my heart´s dear love —

Juliet: Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee I have no joy of this contract tonight.

Could you Image having to learn to read and write in this script. This is one of the easier ones I found. Beautiful. Technology is one thing. It would be nice to not lose the Art of reading, writing and speaking the english language.

Well finally Linux Mint 13 has done an about-face and decided to go back to the original Desktop foundation.
Hooray is all I can say. It’s not that I don’t like change. I love a streamlined desktop with all the buttons handy and not have to dig and search for them.
I want my desktop slick and fast.

Gnome 3 while quite beautiful seemed bogged down and memory hungry by comparison to it’s predecessor.

If you want to know more about Linux Mint 13 Maya I haven’t tried 13 to date. (will be very soon).

Okay now I’ll be honest, I love to build and tinker with various hardware & software. Currently I’m running Linux Mint 11 & 12 in all blends on various PCs & laptops. Along with my new project building my Dream HTPC unit.

I plan to upgrade to Mint 13 has long-term ongoing support.
I’m happy to hear that. Well I’m off to experiment 🙂

Hi Everyone,
welcome to my new project. Building the perfect HTPC that suits my needs and that of the family. I think the builds I have gone for are not necessarily the fastest nor the most beautiful. However the aim is to see how cheap I can build a reasonable unit as compared with current Media players for sale out there in the market. This is actually not so easy to do here in Australia. Why you may ask, red tape I suppose. We can import some but not all parts, motherboards and cases from places like: Amazon. & NewEgg. They both have fabulous cases but they do not ship all available direct to Australia. NewEgg don’t ship anything at least they didn’t last time I checked. To buy a decent build quality small box you will need to spend at least $80 plus.

My pictures of the units I have built so far are to follow at a later stage. For now I will say I was able to find some pretty nifty looking small boxes for a reasonable price scrounging through the net but the quality is just so so. The One I love but it’s really not a micro PC is a Thermaltake. The most expensive of all of them so far. That’s for later too! Overall none of them cut the mustard for what I wanted to build in the end.

After 3 creations and many rehashes of hardware lying around. I was pretty happy and so began testing out various software and researching hardware for a colleague as his new toy wasn’t performing as per the specifications. Reading up on the Thecus N4100EVO it seemed pretty impressive. Sadly the price he picked it up for was no longer valid and so I decided to wait for it to drop in price again. As they always do. While on the hunt for information for the Thecus I spotted this little gem: HP Proliant N40L MicroServer
Initially I was only wanting to upgrade my current Iomega Server. Having 4 2TB drives and many others attached to myAstone Media Players networked throughout the house. It was time to have a slicker setup.

With a bit more reading I found it for a great price $220 at times it is lower according to what I have researched. This included 2GB Ram and a fairly useless 250GB drive. Plus more as per the first link: 250GB drive and memory will come in handy somewhere I’m sure. Even though this model has been around for a while, I still could not have achieved the build quality nor the motherboard, drive and memory all included for the $220 it initially cost me. If I had tried to build this it would have ended up costing more than $300. I can put 6 drives plus into it. I have increased the RAM to 8GBs apparently 16GBs can also be achieved. I added a video card which I had lying around and will update with the models of these items a bit later.

Why this server, well the plan is to set it up as a fully fledged HTPC with XBMC or Freevo thinking it will be XBMC. So the original plan for it has changed after understanding the N40L is capable of. I have already been using XBMC successfully with one of the HTPCs I previously built running Linux12. Linux 13 is now out & available. (UPDATE) LinuxMint 13 now installed.

What you need to do this: An understanding & some knowledge of Linux and or be keen enough to travel a rather steep learning curve. Why would anyone want to do this: For me it’s fun, and I hate with a passion proprietary software which is so restrictive it shackles my creativity. All of the software I use to do this is Free and that’s a bonus when being creative in case of stuff ups.

Sadly I’m off to a bad start: A faulty Mini SAS cable and I am awaiting replacement of it. I have found some wonderful forums and websites dedicated to doing similar things. Once I get my unit up and running I can share exactly what I’m up to with my build. Enjoy the links:

My blog has had a very neglected couple of months. Not much of May left but I will at least get one or two pages in.
That’s the plan. So this week now that the teenager is well and off to school again……………….
Finally I can concentrate on posting up some things.
This month well what’s left of it, will be dedicated to:

Linux, XBMC and the HP Proliant Microserver, HTPC building………………
Yep it’s time for a bit of Nerdsville…………………..Was that a yawn I hear from the audience.
I know that somewhere out there someone will appreciate this.
Already had a huge hiccup with the Microserver had to pull a brand new unit apart as I had a faulty SAS cable (powers the hard drives)